Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Back on Monday…

I’ll be back blogging and tweeting from the Rogers Centre on Monday. For now, feel free to use this post as a forum for dicussing the three-game set against the Rays at the Trop. Catch you in a few days…

although he does talk about some positives, it to me seemed to be full of the “things wrong” with the bluejays

On a different note, GS you are right I had forgotten about Hechervia (sp?)..the new cuban SS we signed. I have heard great thigns about him but I haven’t seen much numbers on him or seen a scouting report on him (although the fact that the yankees were interested in him to replace derek jeter speaks volumes)

Still hoping Snider starts to heat up soon. I was very excited about him and still am!

Clearly, someone p.e.e.d. in MIKE RUTSEY’s wheaties or he simply doesn’t recognize improvement when he sees it or understand the intricacies of the game. Maybe he should just stay with writing about the Rock or Leafs.

I quite agree,
although saying that I do agree with him on a couple of points

1) Tallet should stay in the pen in our rebuilding type year, We want to give as many starts as we can to our young pitchers, including Cecil, seeing as he would be the 2nd/3rd best pitching prospect, AND he already has some experience in the majors while being only 23.

2) Alex Gonzalez should stay at the top of he lineup or if not then move down to the fifth position and overbay down to 6 or something.

First game back for Aaron Hill and he hits a home run, great to have him back in the line-up, sure missed him!!
Jose Bautista and Vernon Wells continue to hit well and drive in runs. Not sure about Frasor yet, he has not proven he can get the job done but Kevin Gregg doing solid job closing. Hoping for another Jays win tonight in Tampa. GO JAYS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the biggest on-field question surrounding Hechavarria concerns his bat. He hit .262 in his final season in Cuba?s national series, a league where roughly 80 players hit .300 or better last season. Hechavarria is aware of the challenge big league pitching will present, but is confident he?ll solve the problem.

We already have shortstops with an amazing glove, is Hech. gonna be able to bat well at this level?

He better be able to hit. I am all for the signing, but the “real” problem with this type of signing is the price. Since the Jays have committed 10 million to this player, no matter what Antho says, the kid will get preferential treatment. We do have other “glove” men playing SS in the minors, but if one of them turns out to be a hitter and Herch falters with the bat, we are likely to see Herch in the majors anyway. Baseball is kind of funny that way where the size of the contract and the implications of failure reflecting poorly on the GM tend to dictate who gets a sniff and who does not. Look no further than this year’s team and its make-up. Contracts have a lot to do with who is and is not playing.

The Jays did a great job getting to Garza before he setting into the game. He is a pitcher that you have to pound early. I honestly gave the Jays no chance winning last night – looking at Garza’s 0.75 ERA. Tampa had also just come off some games where they creamed the White Sox. Tough win, gritty win last night against a hot team. Impressive! Things might not be as bad as they seem this season. This game was very telling for me.http://homerfoodandhistory.mlblogs.com

Burt, although we do have reasonable glove men type of short stops in the minors, none of them are already major league above average which is the description of Hechavarria today. He has above average MLB range, arm and glove today.
The hitting will come, the most important thing for him is to get to a high obp, because with his speed he could be the lead off guy needed.

We had multiple fine performances today in Vegas’s slug fest with Sacramento which Vegas won 14-10.

First and most impressive was Jarret Hoffpauir went 4 for 5, hit for the cycle, walked once, scored 5 times and drove in 2 runs raising his year to date numbers to .333/.382/.540.

Second, Brian Dopirak entered the game at the bottom of the 9th with bases loaded, 2 outs and Vegas on the wrong end of a 11-10 score. On a 2-1 count Dopirak hit a mammoth home run (announcer’s description-lol) and Vegas wins 14-10.

Third, J.P. Arencibia went 2 for 3 and walked 3 times ( maybe as many as he did all last year-lol) and raised his year numbers to .277/.358/.447. The impressive stat there is the OBP, JP is actually learning to take walks, I guess the Lasik surgery worked.

David Purcey went 2 innings ,gave up no runs for the win. Wallace continues to rake going 2 for 5 with a walk, raising his year number to .292/.387/.662 and his 7 home runs in 18 games continues to lead the PCL……

I’ve been keeping an eye on Wallace, too. He looks like a real keeper. It has been a long time (Delgado) since we have seen this type of potential @ first. Speaking of first, my guess is that Cito/Antho are playing Overbay (at Ruiz’s expense) in order to get him going and eventually classified as a Type A free agent. Nothing else seems to make sense…

Meta

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.